CSM: Small wave of Latinos feel draw of Islam
The seeker
James W. Blair Jr.
Special to The Christian Science Monitor
LOS ANGELES
On a Sunday afternoon, while millions in Los Angeles celebrated
Easter, Elizabeth Chawki and her brother, Benny Garcia, sat in a quiet
back room at the ILM Foundation, a small storefront Islamic center, to
speak of what had brought them from traditional Christianity to a
religion little practiced by their fellow Latinos.
"Faith and logic have to go hand in hand," says Ms. Chawki, her
smiling face framed by the folds of her hijab.
It was a spiritual and intellectual conjunction which Chawki, who is
of Spanish American and native American descent, was unable to find
within Roman Catholicism or the born-again Protestantism her family
explored after moving to South Central Los Angeles.
But, she says, she did find it at Pasadena City College, in a chance
conversation with Lebanese students. This ultimately led her to become
one of the tiny but growing number of Latinos who have embraced Islam
- now about 15,000 nationwide.
The talk, she says, was challenging - she recalls one student asking,
"Why do you worship Jesus and not the one who created him?" No one
pressured her to convert and, in any event, she says, "I'm not easily
persuaded."
Still "being brought up Catholic a lot of things are done by tradition
[and] ... didn't move me emotionally." And she realized she had other
doubts about what she'd learned and accepted.
"I went home frustrated. I was trying to defend my faith and I
couldn't." Nevertheless, she felt compelled to continue the
conversations. "I've always asked God to guide me."
Soon, she says, the directness of the connection to God which Islam
offered, the sense of "brotherhood and sisterhood," the structure it
gave to daily life, and its inclusion of much Jewish and Christian
teaching, led her to convert.
Reaction from other Latinos has varied, says Mr. Garcia, who converted
to Islam several years ago for much the same reasons. "It kind of
surprises people who meet a Muslim in jeans," Garcia says. "It's so
shocking there's no reaction - especially when you speak Spanish.
[They ask me]: 'Why aren't you Arabic?' I didn't fit that mold."
Still, because the sense of community identity and Catholic religious
practices are so deeply intertwined in the Hispanic consciousness,
says Garcia, "there's sometimes a sense of betrayal," although that
hasn't translated into violence or discrimination.
Curiosity mixed with acceptance is more the norm as Garcia learned
when he worked at a warehouse where many of the employees were
Hispanics. His co-workers asked why he had stopped eating during meal
breaks. "I would explain that [during the month of Ramadan] we are
ordered by the Prophet to fast from sunup to sundown. They really
respected that."
While Chawki and Garcia follow Islamic religious practices - both pray
five times a day and she has already made the pilgrimage to Mecca -
neither believes in being confrontational.
Yet both feel Islam has much to offer the wider Latino world. Garcia
suggests that it could help to unite the disparate Latino communities
in Los Angeles which are often divided by long standing national or
ethnic differences.
"People are searching," says Chawki. "I think [Islam] is going to
spread like wildfire."
Source http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1999/08/19/f-p17s1.shtml